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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 01/21/2007 : 23:45:27
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I feel it's time for me to comment a bit about this forum.
First, I've really been enjoying this opportunity, and I sincerely thank SFN for letting me have the forum to play with. This forum gives me not only a fine chance to express myself, it also provides feedback to provide me some degree of "reality check."
As for that reality check, I want to encourage everyone who reads my stuff to comment, even if with critical words. I can't really tell how well I'm doing, or tune my future efforts, without that. Just looking at the number of times an article has been read may be interesting, but it probably tells more about attractiveness of the article's title than about how many yuks readers got from it. Also, feedback is the only thing that's really keeping me motivated to do this stuff. It's not all about the Big Bucks. In fact, the pay I get from SFN is itself laughable, especially when broken down into dollars-per-hour.*
Remember, if you like an article and say so, future articles will be slightly more likely to reflect your expressed sense of humor. (Likewise, if you express revulsion, etc., etc., yada yada.)
You've no doubt noticed that I have employed a wide range of styles as well as subjects in Moonscape News. This was intentional, both for experimental reasons, and because my interests are rather broad, like a magpie on LSD. Some of the experiments have already born fruit, though often in a negative way. For instance, I found that interest in my "movie poster" series was low to begin with, yet was somehow capable of dropping off precipitously nonetheless. So I won't be doing any more of those, unless I get an absolutely irrepressible urge to do one occasionally.
I've certainly not yet figured how to reliably create a story that people like. There are a lot of duds. I've mentally classified my stories thusly:
1. Stories I thought would be very popular, and were.
2. Stories I thought would be very popular, but weren't.
3. Stories I didn't think were especially hot, and readers agreed.
4. Stories I didn't think were especially hot, but readers liked.
Group 1 includes (but isn't limited to) the Jesus' bones story, the two Lourdes stories, Swedish-American Generals, the Devonian Bunny, and the TV-monitoring/Jack the Ripper story. Effectively, this group includes most of my effective stories, and all of those that I'd correctly gauged to be decent humor.
Group 2 is the most frustrating category in my mind, because it is filled with efforts that made me laugh, but didn't get the expected degree of yuks from others. This category most poignantly illustrates my ignorance of the art of humor. Group 2 entries include: eBay Sells eBay on eBay, Solar Ironworkers (includes anagrammatically coded inside jokes), Shroud of Turin, Separation of Science and State, and Screaming Al Gore. I'm still trying to figure out the failure of these.
Group 3 has far more entries than I care to mention. At least, I knew they weren't very good. It's embarrassing. 'Nuff said!
Group 4 is a delight. Hits where I expected flops. The Humor Matrix stands out in this category, followed by Ann Coulter has a few glasses, "American Primitive," and Sudden surprises. The only bad thing I have to say about this category is that I didn't see their popularity in advance, and I'd like to have that kind of foresight for a change.
So what am I trying to do in Moonscape? If I can effectively accomplish any one of the following things, I'll feel very happy:
1. Make people laugh.
2. Mock someone or some idea that I feel richly deserves it.
3. Be silly in a Lewis Carroll manner.
4. Make people think in strange new ways.
5. Mock people and things that don't deserve such abuse, just to keep 'em on their toes.
I invite criticism and praise from any reader. I also invite story ideas, and will credit the idea's originator. With one proviso: Your idea may take an entirely unrecognizable form in the final story. This happens to my own ideas, too. I actually go through a "research" phase with most stories (my usual technique is to gather a few random authentic details, while glossing over the rest), and a good deal of the final story's content is stuff I find at random during that research.
Thank you all for reading my stuff! Remember, feedback helps!
* All that about getting paid by SFN to do Moonscape was a joke. I actually have to pay SFN to have the forum.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 01/22/2007 07:18:55
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2007 : 23:57:16 [Permalink]
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Thank you so much. And it was my grandest of all efforts, too.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/22/2007 : 08:46:09 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
...Solar Ironworkers (includes anagrammatically coded inside jokes)...
Anagrams are too Victorian for today's MTV-generation. I include myself, 'cause I didn't realize it until just reading this. I thought "MacZeal" was a reference to zealotry. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/22/2007 : 14:38:22 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
...Solar Ironworkers (includes anagrammatically coded inside jokes)...
Anagrams are too Victorian for today's MTV-generation. I include myself, 'cause I didn't realize it until just reading this. I thought "MacZeal" was a reference to zealotry.
Bingo, you got it. And there certainly is some zealotry in Himnio MacZeal. I really shouldn't have said "anagrams," though, since there was only the one.
Just to be goofy, the story presupposes the iron sun model to be the standard solar model.
Though I hadn't understood much of what was going on in the massive "surface of the sun" debate, my research for this article made me feel very strongly that solid iron there is a crackpot notion. Hell, "Himnio's" Website even shows pictures of iron chunks (meteorites?) that supposedly resemble iron in the sun's subsurface. The biggest problem with an iron sun is simply that the observed sun is far less dense that it would have to be, and there's no explanation for how the gravity from that mass would be hidden. But it's pretty late in the day for me to weigh in on that subject, especially with the small amount of science I have.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 01/22/2007 : 16:15:43 [Permalink]
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I admit to not contributing, statistically speaking. I'll aim to do so more in the future.
Based on an entirely untrustworthy memory from a brain currently operating on unusually low levels of sleep and caffeine, I'll say that I enjoy approximately 42.56117 % of them.
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John's just this guy, you know. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/22/2007 : 18:29:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by JohnOAS
I admit to not contributing, statistically speaking. I'll aim to do so more in the future.
Based on an entirely untrustworthy memory from a brain currently operating on unusually low levels of sleep and caffeine, I'll say that I enjoy approximately 42.56117 % of them.
John, it would be a lot more helpful if you could refine your figures a bit.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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